Frontier Life: the Blockhouse

As we have seen, life for Settlers on the frontier could be dicey.  Isolated frontier cabins made easy targets for Native raiders trying to protect their hunting ranges from continual White encroachment.  For this reason, some well-to-do settlers converted their farms into blockaded fortifications known as stations, complete with blockhouses.  Once a common building on the frontier only a few of them remain today.

The blockhouse was a logical extension of the bastions on a fort and, in fact, some were used by the various armies on the frontier in that way.  Where resources didn't exist for a hewn-stone fort with star bastions and batteries, a palisade with blockhouses on one or more corners of the structure would do.  A blockhouse could be partially of stone and wood, or entirely of wood and consisted of two floors.  The entrance and storage area was on the bottom.  The top floor, accessed by stairs or a steep ladder, was kept clear for soldiers who could aim their muskets through the loopholes in the wall and shot out at attackers.  Unlike the fortified towers in Europe, on which the concept was based, there wasn't much room for civilians or animals.  Instead, in the even of an emergency, anyone who had fled to the palisaded area for protection sought shelter in its outbuildings or camped in the open space inside.

Civilians adopted palisades and blockhouses for their own use, as they were easier to construct.  Well-known community leaders, such as the Donelsons of Donelston's Station in what became Nashville, Tennessee (Rachel Jackson's family), and Valentine Sevier (brother of John), building Sevier Station in what is now Clarksville (along with Mamsker's Station, which has been reconstructed).  The palisaded area contained the family home, outbuildings for the farm, and maybe a store or trading post.  The Donelsons were a large family, so their station included a schoolhouse and was at times used for a courthouse or other community gatherings.  In the event of rumors of a Native attack, everyone in the surrounding community would grab what they could carry and get to the station.  While the men, who were the local militia, manned the blockhouse, women would prepare food, watch over the children and worry till the threat had passed.

These blockhouses were also meeting-places for Whites and Natives outside of the trading post context.  Tellico blockhouse, across the Little Tennessee River from the ruins of Fort Loudoun, served as a venue for no less than four treaty signing between Whites and the Cherokee.  A sign marks the area where it once stood.